The beheadings, this monstrous act of human incineration, are insults designed to generate a visceral response. They are attempts by insignificant men to get the world to recognize their power and status.

With Hanukkah coming to an end this evening, Christmas a day away and people taking time off work, we are in a season of quickened faith. When you watch people exercise that faith, whether lighting candles or attending midnight Mass, the first thing you see is how surprising it is.

If you look at all the proposals that have been discussed since the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York, you find that somewhere or other around the country, police unions have opposed all of them.